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The Da Vinci Code

Columbia Pictures | Release Date: May 19, 2006

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

46	METASCORE Mixed or average reviews based on 40 Critics

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan

While the story plays better on the page than the screen and some of the film's elements work better than others, a proficient Ron Howard version of things is certainly competent if only occasionally thrilling. Read full review

Owen Gleiberman

The surprise, and disappointment, of The Da Vinci Code is how slipshod and hokey the religious detective story now seems. Read full review

The A.V. ClubTasha Robinson

The Da Vinci Code isn't terrible. Brown's novel presented its concepts seriously, as food for thought; Howard's glossy version is more of a snack, designed to be taken only slightly more seriously than "National Treasure," and with the much the same sense of a puzzle-based thrill ride. Read full review

Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer

The Da Vinci Code is so transparently pitched as pulp entertainment that, in the end, it's about as subversive as "Starsky and Hutch." Read full review

VarietyTodd McCarthy

Director Ron Howard and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman have conspired to drain any sense of fun out of the melodrama, leaving expectant audiences with an oppressively talky film that isn't exactly dull but comes as close to it as one could imagine with such provocative material. Read full review

Dana Stevens

I certainly can't support any calls for boycotting or protesting this busy, trivial, inoffensive film. Which is not to say I'm recommending you go see it. Read full review

USA TodayClaudia Puig

Ron Howard has taken an intriguing page-turner of a story and re-shaped it into a bloated wannabe epic. Read full review

Richard Corliss

Howard and Goldsman have efficiently touched all the bases. But they haven't found a way to replicate the book's page-turning urgency. Read full review

Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea

McKellen, Hanks and Tautou - and Alfred Molina, as a bishop with an agenda - are no slouches when it comes to emoting, but screenwriter Goldsman's rigorously faithful interpretation of Brown's flatfooted prose stylings is the filmic equivalent of putting big chewy baguettes in the actors' maws. Read full review

Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez

This laborious, talky, fleetingly engaging, ultimately silly picture is about as good a movie as anyone was ever going to wring from Dan Brown's inescapable bestseller. Read full review

L.A. WeeklyGreg Burk

Action and ideas -- they get in each other's way, pal. And director Ron Howard didn't want to choose between 'em. Good impulse, not such a good result. Read full review

Ann Hornaday

The most controversial thriller of the year turns out to be about as exciting as watching your parents play Sudoku. Read full review

PremiereJessica Letkemann

At root, novelist Dan Brown’s story is an entertaining one--whether you believe any of these ideas are real or not. And in the end, it’s that standard movie trope (good guys must solve dire puzzle while bad guys give chase) that makes The Da Vinci Code an okay film. Read full review

San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle

There are reversals of expectation, miraculous escapes from certain doom -- all the things that make thrillers thrilling. But The Da Vinci Code isn't thrilling. Read full review

SlateDana Stevens

Given the silliness of the source material, The Da Vinci Code stood little chance of being a great film, but it could easily have been a fun one. Instead, Howard takes a strangely respectful approach to the overheated mysticism of the novel, turning the film into that most boring of genres: the pious blockbuster. Read full review

Baltimore SunMichael Sragow

Lacks suspense, momentum and visual panache. Read full review

SalonStephanie Zacharek

Disappointingly tame. Read full review

TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh

Only McKellan seems to understand the profound silliness of the film in which he finds himself, and he camps it up accordingly. Read full review

Ty Burr

An acceptable but uninspired simulacrum: an overly faithful multiplex translation of a very, very popular airport novel. Read full review

Chicago ReaderAndrea Gronvall

Screenwriter Akiva Goldsman (A Beautiful Mind) pelts the viewer with so many factoids and allegations about the early Catholic church, goddess worship, the Crusades, painting, cartography, and code-breaking that the movie's big revelation turns out to be neither grand nor shocking. Read full review

The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann

The screenplay is at the start far from lucid in setting forth characters and relationships and intents. And after the film has been barreling along for two hours of its 148-minute journey, it seems to have lost the ability to finish. Three or four times in the last half-hour, I thought the film was over, only to be jarred by more of it. Read full review

The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt

Da Vinci never rises to the level of a guilty pleasure. Too much guilt. Not enough pleasure. Read full review

EmpireIan Freer

One of the most talk driven summer flicks in living memory, an out of sorts Howard transforms what should be a fun treasure trail romp into something inert and borderline dreary. Read full review

Village VoiceMichael Atkinson

Overshadowed by its own marketing hurricane and popular rage, Code struggles for significance as a movie experience and flies a weak flag as a provocation. Read full review